Dave Grohl on the guitarist who shaped his favourite album of all time
You would be hard-pushed to find any man in rock music with as eclectic or passionate a musical taste as Dave Grohl. The former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters frontman has taken every opportunity presented to him over the years to espouse the joys of his favourite artists. Despite his beginnings in the rebellious grunge rock scene, the songwriter’s tastes seem to incorporate everything from classic rock to disco. For the most part, though, his attraction to artists tends to revolve around the guitar.
In the early days of Dave Grohl, the music obsessive got his start by playing guitar with a variety of high school rock bands before switching to the drums for the short-lived group Mission Impossible. Of course, it was through teaching himself the drums that Grohl got the chance to join the ranks of grunge icons Nirvana, becoming a household name within rock circles in the process.
However, Grohl never lost his passion for the six-string, and when Nirvana dissolved following the tragic death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, he reverted back to his original passion. Having been the frontman and guitarist for Foo Fighters for three decades now, Grohl is as well known as a guitarist as he was a drummer. His distinctive style and incredible technical ability, which has captivated audiences for years, is largely down to Ghrol’s endlessly broad range of influences. A disciple of classic rock, the frontman grew up on a steady diet of artists like Ozzy Osbourne, Led Zeppelin, and even Kiss.
In contrast to these classic rock staples, Grohl has repeatedly affirmed that his all-time favourite album is actually by Ry Cooder, the noted Americana guitarist who helped to popularise modern slide guitar. “There is an instrumental record by an American legend named Ry Cooder,” Grohl once shared, “He scored a movie called Paris, Texas in the ’80s, and the soundtrack to that film is my favourite album of all time.”
The 1984 film is magnificent in a multitude of ways, featuring a particularly good performance from Harry Dean Stanton. Cooder’s soundtrack is a colossal reason for the film’s cult success, though. “It sort of paints this sort of barren desert landscape,” Grohl continued, “but he does it with a slide guitar. It’s just so simple and emotive and amazing.”
Born in Los Angeles, California, Cooder first picked up a guitar at the age of three, and has scarcely been seen without one ever since. His distinctive playing style and pioneering use of slide guitar earned Cooder the attention of various legendary artists, including the likes of Captain Beefheart, The Rolling Stones, Linda Ronstadt, and Neil Young among countless others.
Cooder’s work on the Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas, is often considered among his greatest work, with the guitarist capturing the desert landscape of the film perfectly. In fact, his work on the soundtrack eventually led to Wenders directing the Oscar-nominated documentary film Buena Vista Social Club, about the 1997 album of the same name, produced by Cooder.
Although the slide guitar of Ry Cooder might not seem the most obvious influence on Dave Grohl, particularly when listening to the straight-line rock and roll of Foo Fighters, his deep adoration for the Paris, Texas soundtrack is a testament to his endlessly diverse range of influences. It is, arguably, this broad range of inspiration taken on by Grohl that has afforded the multi-instrumentalist such a long and varied career within the music industry. Despite a deep love of classic rock, it seems as though guitarists don’t come any better than Ry Cooder, at least in the mind of Dave Grohl.
